Restless Souls

by Alisa Statman

  “I guess that he likes him.”

  “Do you think that’s okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “What makes Axl Rose so cool?”

  Brie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you like his music? The lyrics? What?”

  Another shrug. “Jeez, give me a break, I don’t know, he’s just cute.”

  So much for insight.

  I tried to keep an open mind about the rock groups that tantalized my kids. After all, my generation had Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, and Steppenwolf, all bands that were thought of by some to be evil and a corrupting influence on our youth. Nevertheless, by sporting Manson on his chest, Axl Rose opened himself to my scrutiny.

  While researching Rose on the Internet, I found other bands hooked to serial killers. There was Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids—with band members Berkowitz, Speck, Lucas, and Gacy.

  Interestingly, Marilyn Manson’s group was under contract to Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails. Reznor had recorded his latest album in the living room of Sharon’s former house on Cielo Drive (dubbed Le Pig of Beverly Hills Studio). His CD included the songs Piggy, March of the Pigs, and Big Man with a Gun—reputedly introduced with a barrage of gunshots.

  Along with the chart toppers, I found a number of small underground groups who played Manson’s music in clubs around the world. Each one of the homage bands pinched at the heart wound of Sharon’s murder, but when I learned that Axl Rose planned to release one of Manson’s songs as part of his next compilation, it squeezed my heart to pulp.

  Manson composed “Look at Your Game Girl” in 1968. Why did Rose want to cover the song twenty-five years later?

  “Manson is a dark part of American culture and history,” Rose commented to the press. “He’s the subject of fear and fascination through books, movies, and the interviews he’s done. Most people haven’t heard anything Charles Manson recorded. Personally, I liked the lyrics and the melody of the song. Hearing it shocked me, and I thought there might be other people who would like to hear it.”

  Thanks, but I could have done without it.

  My personal appeal to David Geffen to remove the covered song before Guns N’ Roses released their upcoming CD, The Spaghetti Incident?, was answered with a short press release that he sent from the Caribbean: “I would hope that if Axl Rose had realized how offensive people would find this, he would not have ever recorded this song in the first place. The issue is not the song itself, it’s the fact that Charles Manson would be earning money based on the fame he derived committing one of the most horrific crimes of the twentieth century. It’s unthinkable to me.”

  David Geffen had a point, but what lay at the core of my problem with Axl Rose’s recording the song and including it on his album was the fact that he was idealizing Charles Manson, putting him on a glamorous pedestal, and sending that message to his fans—and a majority of Guns N’ Roses fans are under the age of twenty-one.

  Not long before my mother passed away, we went to the market. She stopped the car in the middle of a row of parking spaces and said, “Would you look at that.” She pointed to a car parked crookedly near the end of the row. “That car caused a chain-reaction to the entire row; no one can park within the lines. So what happens? Now, the handicapped space is useless because the last car is halfway in it. That’s all it takes, one person’s inconsideration.”

  Mom was right, and Axl Rose had the capability of reaching millions.

  The most important message that I wanted to instill in my children while they were impressionable was that their actions would always affect another. Like Father O’Reilly said at Sharon’s funeral: We create in every act of good we do; we destroy in every act of evil we perform. Axl Rose was about to accentuate that lesson for my kids.

  Beginning a national boycott against Geffen Records was a tough call. Ultimately, I was attempting to squelch Axl Rose’s freedom of speech. But just as he had a right to express himself, so did I. On December 7, 1993, I launched a boycott against all products released by Geffen, and then hit the talk-show circuit to promote the boycott and demote Manson’s current following.

  Patti 1994

  “Charles Manson is not evil; it’s the society that condemns him that’s evil.”

  “Manson didn’t kill anyone; he doesn’t deserve to be in prison.”

  “He’s a prophet.”

  “He’s the only modern American hero!”

  Dissension was the name of the game in a cold Chicago soundstage where The Bertice Berry Show was being taped. The moment the cameras began recording, random shouting between guests replaced the usual talk-show format, with the opposing sides more preoccupied with victory than with communication.

  With the help of Axl Rose and Richard Lemmons (the manufacturer of the Manson apparel), a fresh breed of believers in Charles Manson’s innocence was spawned.

  Like many, I held the opinion that Manson and evil were synonymous. To his proponents, Manson was a peace-loving musician unjustly convicted of murder. How could each side see two completely different personas emanating from the same man?

  Seated next to me on the stage for Bertice Berry’s show was my sole teammate for the day, Vince Bugliosi. We had been ambushed. Spread throughout the audience were Manson defenders, identifiable by the shirts and hats they wore with his face emblazoned across the fabric. Lemmons sat in the front row.

  Sharing the stage with us was our primary opponent, Sandra Good, Manson’s most avid and infamous follower since 1969.

  When the cameras went to standby for a commercial break, Sandra came over and knelt at my feet. “Patti, you’ve been lied to for twenty-six years,” she said, handing me a business card. “Call me. I will answer any questions you have. Sharon wasn’t supposed to be home; she wasn’t supposed to die. There’s so much you don’t know about Hollywood, it’s a hellish place to be. And let me tell you, Sharon found out the hard way. If she hadn’t decided to get stoned on coke that night, she’d be alive today.”

  I handed her back the card. “You don’t get it, do you, Sandra? My sister did die; the rest of this nonsense you’re peddling is incidental.”

  “You don’t understand,” she insisted. “The murders had nothing to do with Helter Skelter, that only meant confusion. We saw the country spiraling into a greater state of confusion, which is what you have now.”

  “And you’re making it worse,” I told her.

  “It can’t get much worse than it already is.”

  “Why murder?” I asked, genuinely trying to understand.

  The stage manager interrupted us. The show was seconds from resuming, so the answers to my question would remain a mystery.

  The moment the cameras rolled again, the chaos rolled with them. Barely audible through the clamor of the rambunctious crowd, Vince attempted to make a point. “These murders were committed for two reasons: Manson’s lust for killing, and his enormous amount of hostility against society.”

  “Oh, that’s bullshit, Vince!” Sandra said. “We killed for the love of brother. We killed to get a brother out of jail! . . . In war . . . you defend yourself.”

  “That’s not self-defense, that’s called murder,” Vince shot back.

  “Oh, yeah?” Sandra laughed. “Why don’t we ask Patti about her dad, Colonel Tate. How many lives were lost because of his activities? We were no different!”

  I moved to the edge of my seat. “Do not compare my father helping to keep this country safe with your group’s cold-blooded murders.”

  She waved me off. “Patti, all I was trying to say is that we were all at war. In the context of the sixties, violence wasn’t unusual. Even the music was singing it to us. [With the murders] we showed America violence in their own homes and said, ‘This is where our country is headed. We are your children, doing what you have taught us.’ ”

  The teenagers in the audience stood, cheering Sandra’s perception of them. Many jeered at me when moments later I challenged her. . . . “You know, I’d
like to ask, why did my sister have to pay for it—”

  “Patti, she shouldn’t have been home—” Sandra started.

  “Why any of them? They were good people!”

  Sandra started to interrupt me again, but I continued. “No! Stop it! The truth is that Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Van Houten, Watson—and in my opinion—Linda Kasabian, are murderers, and we have to protect ourselves from them so they don’t go out and kill again. You talk about being at war, and how we watched our soldiers coming home in body bags. Does that justify me watching my sister being rolled out in a body bag? With her belly out to here? . . . He took my sister’s God-given right to live.”

  “He did not kill your sister, and he did not order your sister to be killed, Patti. You’ve got to believe me.”

  Thankfully, another commercial break intervened, and I escaped to the restroom, where I rested and prayed to keep my façade of strength from crumbling. I needed the whole bottle, but took just a half of Xanax and slipped it under my tongue, hoping it would take effect before I returned to the stage. When I took to my seat again, Bertice invited four teenagers to join the guests. Steven, Chris, Eric, and Eva all had a common bond: Manson was their role model.

  “Why do you follow Charles Manson?” Bertice asked Steven.

  “I don’t follow him. I identify with him. He was a white man who had a hard life, who grew up in the same conditions that I did. He’s innocent of what you’ve convicted him of. . . .”

  Vince was as dumbfounded at their perception of Manson as I was. He sat forward to address all four of them. “I’d like to ask you all a question for clarification purpose, because there is some ambiguity here. Manson was convicted of nine murders. Now, do you look up to him because you think it’s perfectly okay to do what he did, or do you think the convictions are in error?”

  His question incited another free-for-all. “Retrial! Retrial!” Richard Lemmons yelled from his seat.

  “Show me the proof!”. . .

  “He didn’t kill anyone!”. . .

  “It’s all media hype!”. . .

  Through the thunder of voices, one lashed out, “You don’t get it. Charlie’s philosophy is what’s important! We identify with it.” Steven pointed at me. “We couldn’t care less about your sister! This has nothing to do with her.”

  Though I searched for a reply, the insensitive words that spilled so easily from him left me speechless. A moment later, any thoughts I may have responded with became pointless. The audience rally escalated into a congregated chant of “Free Manson.” Momentarily defeated, I felt vulnerable and alone amid this unsettling crowd. Vulnerable, because my childhood fear of confrontations turning violent hadn’t dissipated in the slightest. On top of that, last week I received a threatening letter in the mail: “So sorry to hear about your sis, but when the Manson sisses get out of jail, what they have planned for you will make everyone finally forget about your sis’s murder.”

  I scanned the studio. Was the author of this note in the audience? On the stage? Sandra? Richard Lemmons?

  I withdrew from the uproar, seeking the inner strength to see the show through to the end. With closed eyes, I concentrated on Mom’s adage: focus and come out fighting.

  “Manson never advocated killing,” Steven said. “He never advocated Helter Skelter. He merely recognized the fact that the apocalypse was coming.”. . .

  Focus and come out fighting.

  “He helped people to find their hearts. He told people to do what was in their hearts,” Sandra said. . . .

  Focus and come out fighting.

  “You all keep saying that Manson himself never killed anyone,” Vince said, “but in addition to the seven Tate/LaBianca murders he was also convicted of physically participating in the murders of Shorty Shea and Gary Hinman. . . .”

  “There’s no proof,” Christina shouted.

  “No proof?” Vince laughed. “A jury thought there was enough proof and convicted him.”. . .

  Focus and come out fighting.

  “Hold on a minute everyone,” Bertice said. “I need to introduce Richard Lemmons. Richard, why do you make T-shirts with Charles Manson’s image on them?”

  “I feel that Charlie got a raw deal. . . . And I want to say that I’m so tired of hearing Patricia Tate whine about how much money we’re making. Why don’t you ask Bugliosi how many millions he’s made off his book?”

  Focus and come out fighting.

  “Listen,” Vince answered. “It’s perfectly acceptable for someone to write a nonfiction book about their experiences—”

  Lemmons yelled, “It’s fiction—”

  “—whether it’s a lawyer in a case, a professional athlete, or a general during wartime. That’s all I did. Don’t equate that with Manson’s being responsible for nine murders, and profiting from the murders he committed through you! You’re glorifying him. On that same note, it’s a sad commentary on justice in America that a murderer who was supposed to receive the death penalty ends up having his song appear on a hit rock album by Guns N’ Roses. From a moral standpoint, it’s truly distasteful.”

  “Hey! People are so ticked off at Charlie; where’s Tex Watson come up in all this?” Lemmons stood and turned toward the audience. “Tex Watson did eighty-five percent of the killings. Bunch of ignorant people, you don’t even know who Tex is!”. . .

  Focus and come out fighting.

  “Patti,” Bertice asked, “you’ve been very quiet, but you see all of this happening. What would you like to say?”

  “What I’d like to say to Mr. Lemmons—and I’ve already spoken to you about this in depth—do you see this madness? You’re adding to it.”

  “I ain’t adding to nothing!”

  Focus. “What I’d like to say to the young people who reflect on Manson’s beliefs—find something positive to reflect on. Get out there and love one another. I grew up hard with the evil that surrounded me with my sister’s death. It was the destruction of my world. Please don’t reflect on that evil. Get out there and rebel in a positive way.”

  The show ended, and as was my custom, I wasted no time getting out of the studio and into the waiting car. The difference this time was that I was sure that Sandra Good was following, and I was scared.

  When I decided to see through my commitment to Mom, I jumped in with both feet—like a cat thrown into icy water. Some days, I thrashed about, terrified, accomplishing little more than a lot of chaotic splashing. Some days, I pulled myself out, shook off the frigid water, and focused on what’s at stake. And it’s not only my family’s justice on the line. Because the Manson Family are considered to be the most heinous killers in the annals of California history, releasing any one of them will no doubt precipitate the release of countless other heinous killers in the California prison system.

  “Long day?” the driver asked.

  “And it’s only just begun,” I sighed.

  “I caught most of the show from backstage. I’ve got to hand it to you—if it’d been me up there, I would have slugged that Lemmons guy, but you held your cool, you did good.”

  “I don’t think I did much good in there today.”

  “Hey, for what it’s worth, I’m going straight home and going through my kid’s music. It just takes one bad apple to ruin them. You know what I’m saying?” He started the car. “Are we still going straight to the airport?”

  “Yes. Thank you,” I said, and bundled up against the snow scuttling around the car. As we pulled away, I took one last look to be sure that Sandra wasn’t following.

  I closed my eyes and tried to rest before round two. With less than eight hours to spare, I had a meeting with Geffen Records in Los Angeles.

  THE WEATHER IN West Hollywood wasn’t much better than what I’d left behind in Chicago. The rain hammered against the window of the conference room where I waited for Geffen executive Ed Rosenblatt.

  Jet-lagged and jittery from the NoDoz I’d taken, I didn’t have very high expectations for the meeting. Geffen had
released the Guns N’ Roses CD with the Manson song included. Overseas sales had sold an estimated three hundred thousand copies. The most I hoped for was to touch them with my sister’s story and my love for her, so it might deter them from doing anything like this again in the future.

  The door opened. Six men entered. Five of them scattered to seats around the table. One took the helm. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Rosenblatt announced. “Please, sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, wondering who his silent partners were, positive that at least one of them had a law degree. I wasted no time and held up a photo of Sharon. “On August eighth, 1969, my sister woke up without a care in the world. She had an early appointment with her obstetrician, and called later to tell us that the baby was fine. Around one o’clock, Sharon had lunch with friends. From three to five, she napped. Later, she went to dinner with friends. When she got home, she retired to her bedroom with plans on waking to another day. What happened after that is indescribable.

  “I look at her picture, and all of the emotions from twenty-five years ago come back to me as if it were yesterday. What I remember most about the time after Sharon was murdered, is watching my parents suffer. Knowing I could never fill Sharon’s shoes, and realizing that all I could do was wrap my arms around my mom and dad, tell them how much I love them, and go on from day to uncertain day.

  “In light of that experience, I have only three goals in my life right now. The first is to raise my kids in an environment of peace and security. Second, to see to it that Sharon’s killers remain in prison. And the third, to make every attempt to have less victimization in our country. As I see it, your company is an obstacle for all three of my goals.”

  Rosenblatt shifted in his chair. “I’m sure that you can appreciate that our company would have preferred that the Manson song wasn’t on the Guns N’ Roses album, but you must understand, that the choice to cover Mr. Manson’s song was the sole decision of Axl Rose and in no way represents the opinion of Geffen Records.”